The Warriors completed a trade Wednesday that will send center Dan Gadzuric and forward Brandan Wright to New Jersey for the expiring contract of forward Troy Murphy and a second-round pick in 2012.

The deal is a lot less than what Warriors fans were hoping for as the NBA's Thursday noon trade deadline approached. Armed with more than $17 million worth of expiring contracts, the team appeared to be sitting pretty entering the 2010-11 season.

Those expiring contracts, usually valuable on the trade market, seemed to give the Warriors the tools to improve their roster. But the second-round pick from New Jersey might be all Golden State will have to show for all those contracts.

Warriors general manager Larry Riley said he wasn't surprised by the bare market.

"We pushed a lot of buttons and worked like the dickens," Riley said. "But I never believed those (expiring contracts) were going to have value this year. It's relative to what's going to happen with the collective bargaining agreement."

The collective bargaining agreement expires June 30, and the salary-cap structure for next season is unknown. In the past, teams would make trades to get below the cap, giving them the flexibility to sign free agents in the offseason. With no target number, such cost-cutting measures aren't as relevant.

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Gadzuric and Wright will rid the Warriors of a combined $10.6 million in expiring contracts, but in Murphy, the team will get back a $12 million expiring contract. According to team sources, Murphy will be bought out and become a free agent. The Warriors, who had him from 2001-07, do not want him back on the team. They are only interested in his expiring contract and the draft pick.

One team source said the Warriors called the Utah Jazz about point guard Deron Williams before he was traded to New Jersey. The source also said Golden State was not interested in most of the names being floated in the rumor mill -- Charlotte forward Gerald Wallace and New Orleans guard Marcus Thornton were two -- and that the Warriors might look into signing Houston's Yao Ming or Portland's Greg Oden in the offseason. Both centers are out this season with career-threatening injuries.

Golden State had talked to the Boston Celtics about acquiring backup guard Nate Robinson, but another team source said those were just talks that didn't lead anywhere.

Multiple league sources said other teams mostly were asking the Warriors for point guard Stephen Curry, guard Reggie Williams or rookie big man Ekpe Udoh -- players whom Golden State wanted to keep.

League rules also prevent the Warriors from dealing their 2011 first-round pick because they already have traded their 2012 first-rounder.

The Warriors now will turn their roster renovation project to the offseason. According to Riley, that's when the team planned to do its heaviest lifting anyway.

"We've managed the cap well. We're not in a bad spot," Riley said. "But everything is so indefinite now that not much is going on. So we'll go into the summer and see what happens (with the new collective bargaining agreement) and go from there."